


Closed Borders, World On Fire

by happycamper19



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, COVID19, F/M, Happy Ending, but it's this universe, everything is going to be okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:21:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23364628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happycamper19/pseuds/happycamper19
Summary: He felt his lips quirk up and then immediately come down again. It didn’t feel right to be smiling here, now, amid sick patients and desperate families.OrThe world's on fire, and Gilbert doesn't really know what to do about it.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 7
Kudos: 75





	Closed Borders, World On Fire

The hospital transformed in less than a week. 

Gilbert remembers his first day as a resident. He remembers the coolness of the white, everywhere, and the navy of his scrubs and the crispness of his new white coat. He remembers his pure unadulterated joy, the giddiness that he shared with his peers, of finally arriving, of finally making it. 

But that was all gone, now. The white cleanliness, the steady sound of machines beeping, it was nowhere to be found. Anne understood when he explained it to her. That even amid a surgery, or life threatening crisis, he would become calm and collected. That he would be able to see in his head what to do and how to do it. She felt the same when she wrote her best stories.

He knew there was no way for it to be true, but to Gilbert it was like every room in the hospital now had dim lights. Fitting, he supposed, for their current situation. Anne would know how to describe it better, he thought. She’d craft her words and spin them into something tangible. He felt his lips quirk up and then immediately come down again. It didn’t feel right to be smiling here, now, amid sick patients and desperate families. 

Gilbert remembers the first time he heard of the outbreak, months before. He barely gave it a second thought, and went on with his day. It’s his entire life now. He sighed. He already missed his time before, when he spent his time with patients he knew how to fix.

“You okay there, Gilbert?” He looked up from his meal to see Jack’s concerned eyes.

“Yeah, fine. Just anxious to get home.” And he was. Gilbert, like the rest of the hospital staff, has been pulling double shifts since the pandemic reached PEI, only to come home to crash and go back to work to do it all over again.

“I know what you mean,” Jack said. “I haven’t talked face to face with Lizzie in, like, three days. I can’t believe that this is only the beginning. If people stayed home… I mean, I feel like we’re residents again and--”

His watch beeped, signalling the end of his thirty minute break. Gilbert watched as his long term friend and coworker took out his mask from the zipped plastic bag across from him. Anger surged through him. Their situation was absolutely ridiculous.

“Don’t.” Jack cut him off before he could even open his mouth. “We’re making the best of the situation. It’s enough that this building is practically leeching the life out of us as it is.”

“It’s been one week, Jack! And two people have already died, _in this hospital_!”

“And what do you suggest we do about it?” Jack asked, mildly surprised. Their panicked rants came every few days, and they diffused each other's anger regularly. “I know this is terrible. I mean, I’m hating life right now, and I can't possibly imagine how you feel, with a baby coming and everything. But listen, maybe 6 more hours, and you’ll be at home.”

Gilbert looked around the room, refusing eye contact with the man in front of him. He took a breath. 

“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks.” Gilbert gave him a tight lipped smile and Jack nodded and then gathered his stuff. He held the last bite of his banana in his hand as he waved goodbye to Gilbert.

Gilbert shook his head ruefully. The conversation with his friend lifted his spirits, if only temporarily. Still, it was impossible for him to feel better when he had more than 10 patients in critical care. He looked down at his cafeteria meal, only half eaten, and then the clock with disdain. He had half a shift to go. 

He didn’t really know what would make him feel better.

That was a lie. He knew what would make him feel better. He knew who would be able to distract him and ease the heaviness from his shoulders. And then, like it was God answering his prayers, his phone rang.

Gilbert jumped as he dived for his phone from his coat. He knew it was Anne. Knew it from their agreement that she would call sometime from 12:00 to 12:30, and if he wasn’t caught up in a surgery, he would answer. She fought him tooth and nail on why she had to call. “I can’t _stand_ the uncertainty, Gil!” 

“Uncertainty?” He said, amused. This was still a week ago (a month, a year, a lifetime ago).

“About whether you’ll answer my call or not!” She had said this passionately, like everything else she said, with her signature gusto that made him fall in love with her. 

“You know you need to rest, Anne. I know how tired you get throughout the day when I’m gone, especially now that you don’t have your kids to keep you awake at school.” And it was true. The public schools across their province shut down over a month ago, falling in line with the rest of the country, and the world. All around them the planet was shutting down, and everyone was locked away in their homes. Everyone, it seemed, except Gilbert.

They had locked eyes with each other, each one refusing the back down. 

“Come on, Anne. You know that’s not fair. The baby’s going to come any day now and you have to rest more than ever. If you’re sleeping during my lunch break I wouldn’t want to wake you up for a chat with me when I’d be telling you the same thing that I would be telling you a few hours later when I come home.”

“What if I want you to wake me?”

“You have to rest. Doctor’s orders.” He was firm, but he smiled.

“Whatever,” she said. “Careful, though, or I’ll order extra apples.”

Gilbert rolled his eyes at his wife, chuckling at their overused joke. “I’ll be looking forward to your calls, dear.”

* * *

  
  
He smiled at the memory as he pressed accept on his phone. His smile widened at his profile picture of her. 

“Hey, Anne-girl! How are you and the little one?”

“Hi Gil.” Her voice was smaller than he was expecting it to be. “Fine, I suppose. We had an easy morning, waking up late, calling Marilla, doing some laundry. I never thought I’d miss grading math papers, but here we are.”

“I know dear. It’s tough here too.”

“Oh! How’s your patient from yesterday we were talking about? The one you were really concerned about, the woman?” Gilbert didn’t want to tell her the truth. 

“Oh, fine, I suppose. Her extended family came by around ten this morning. They were pretty upset that they couldn’t come into the ICU to see her. I didn’t really have the heart to tell them that, one, she’s in a medically induced coma, and two, they could actually catch her disease and end up in the same place as her. They gave me flowers to put by her bedside, though there isn’t any sunlight in her room.”

Gilbert heard Anne shuffle around over the phone. She sighed, and then, “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what, Anne-girl?”

“Spend all day around such sick people doing your best to keep them from dying. It’s gotta be incredibly taxing.” He smiled into the empty room around him.

“Well I don’t know how you do it.”

“What, Gil? Stay at home and cook the same three meals over and over?”

“Grow a baby.”

A pause, and then an explosion of giggles could be heard over the line. Gilbert succeeded in what he always planned to do -- make her laugh.

“I sent you to four years of medical school, Doctor Blythe. I’m sure you know how a baby is made.”

He grinned. How could she make him feel so much better in a matter of minutes?

They breathed together over the line. And then, after a few seconds, “How are you really, Gil?”

He was too tired to lie, and he knew better than to question her, and spent a few moments trying to compose his state of mind into words. 

“I’m tired,” he started. “My head kind of pounds and my nose is itchy from where my mask was. My hands are strangely cold. I’m burned out from my shift, and I feel like I’m about to collapse thinking that it’s only halfway through. I feel so hopeless watching everything that’s around me, almost like it would all be happening exactly the same if I wasn’t here. I don’t really know what I’m doing, Anne, to be completely honest. None of the doctors and nurses here know how to treat it. It’s like a giant monster looming over our shoulders and laughing at us. I don’t feel strong enough. We’re just taking temperatures and giving fluids, basically. And hoping for the best. I feel useless.”

It wasn’t unusual for him to break down over their daily calls on his lunch break. By now it was a fairly regular occurrence they both accepted and hardly ever mentioned again after the fact. It was easier for Gilbert to pinpoint his emotions when he was in the hospital. 

“You’re far from useless, Gilbert Blythe.” He sighed over the line. “No, don’t give me that, Gilbert, I’m serious. You’re the strongest person I know, going in that building every day and helping people like you do. I’m amazed and dumbfounded and exhilarated to be your wife every day, Gil. And I’m proud of you, okay? Through everything, even though you’re leaving me trapped inside this house by myself every day, I’m so incredibly proud of you.” 

Warmth spread through his center and around his body. His hands didn’t feel cold anymore. They breathed together on the line again. And then he saw one of his patients wheeled around through the halls by one of the nurses. His heart starts beating faster, and Anne, maybe sensing his breathing changing or maybe just sensing him, starting speaking again. This time in a low, fast paced speech.

“I love you, Gilbert Blythe. I’ve loved you since we were children and you asked me about dragons needing slaying. You’re strong. You’ve always been strong. You helped me turn into the woman I am today. You were with me when Mathew died, and when Marilla’s eyesight worsened. You were with me when Diana moved away. You were with me through every panic attack I had over those terrible foster homes. We survived, like, six years long distance, and we’re going to survive this. I just know it Gilbert Blythe.”

His breathing slowed. Warmth reached his fingertips again. 

“Besides,” she said in a teasing tone, “if you could survive everything I made you put up with throughout our childhood, then you can survive this too.”

They ended the call, but just as quickly as the warmth came, it left.

Gilbert Blythe’s wife had the wonderful quality of reassuring her husband under practically any circumstance. But this wasn’t Gilbert coming home from work tired and stressed. No. These were extraordinary times. Now, Gilbert was _scared_. 

He was around highly infectious people all day every day, and the hospital’s masks were running out. He hasn’t felt fear this strongly since he confessed to Anne years ago in front of her dorm building. If only he knew how to fix it.

* * *

Anne Shirley-Cuthbert is many things, but she is not scared.

Bored? Yes. Annoyed? Yes. Worried, sad, emotional? Yes to them all. But despite the fact the world was on fire and no one knew how to distinguish it, Anne had an unwavering faith that they would be okay.

Her days consisted of cooking, cleaning, writing, and watching the news. And the dishes. There seemed to be a constant pile of dishes in her sink. Her time in quarantine blurred together into a giant soup of activities, but that didn’t stop Anne from feeling hopeful. Gilbert was coming home early for the first time in weeks, there was pasta boling on the stove, and she hasn’t turned the TV on for hours. All things considered, life was good.

Which was why Anne was surprised to see such a disheveled Gilbert walk through the door and into their bedroom with only a mumbled hello. He was late, over an hour later than he said, but Anne knew not to take that personally. At first, she didn’t think much of it, but as time went on and he was spending close to an hour changing his clothes, she went to check up on him.

Anne wasn’t stupid. She knew that he had the change and washed his clothes as soon as he got it. She knew he had to take a shower and scrub the entirety of himself as soon as possible. She knew that he couldn’t kiss her hello because he was protecting her, and their baby. But for the past few weeks it has never taken this long, and Anne was worried.

She gently knocked on the door before letting herself in.

* * *

Gilbert felt horrible. 

He was late, and not because of an emergency patient providing extra help. He’s been working at the hospital for four years, and should have been able to drive home blindfolded. But Gilbert was stuck in his own thoughts during his drive home so much that he ended up taking three wrong turns, making him over an hour late.

So there he lay, clean and in pyjamas, resting on their bed with ankles crossed and his hands underneath his head. He heard a knock. 

“I made some pasta, why don’t you come out and we can eat?” Her hands were on her belly, her hair was down, and Gilbert couldn’t look at her.

“Aren’t you angry?” His tone was harsh, and it took her back a bit.

“For what? Look, you’ll feel better after we’ve eaten. Come out and then we’ll play scrabble or something, we should start teaching little Blythe how to spell…”

But at the mention of their child Gilbert felt worse. He sat up. He never had Anne’s way with words, and his speech came out hurried. “Aren’t you angry with what’s going on, Anne? Aren’t you scared? Yeah, what about the baby? This is going to last way past your due date, aren’t you just completely petrified?”

Anne’s temper was manageable at best when she wasn’t pregnant, so one would think she'd be more prone to explode at the moment. Instead, at least at this point in her pregnancy, it brought a bout of clarity. Nothing today should have made her more scared than yesterday, and the day before that. 

She didn’t understand everything about Gilbert’s day, but she'd be damned if she didn’t know Gilbert. You can’t grow up with someone without knowing how their brain works. A five year long rivalry leads you to know someone pretty well, and a decade long friendship teaches you even more. 

Yes, Anne knew her husband. She knew that he took care of his father for years while he was sick, and stayed strong through that. She knew that he stayed strong when he died, and when Mary, who was like his sister, died.

Anne knew that Gilbert didn’t like to show people when he was scared. And though his voice was steady when he talked to her, Anne knew him better than that.

“What’s this really about, Gilbert? What happened today?” She moved from the doorway to sit on the edge of their bed, arms crossed in front of her.

Maybe Gilbert was just tired, or emotional, or scared, but his eyes developed a sheen as he struggled not to cry. While he covered his head in his hands and steadied his breathing she marveled at how they’ve changed. Yes, they still had long, heated arguments. But where once this conversation would have made them scream and leave their house, they now know each other enough to sit through it.

He took his hands off his head. His words were slow, like he was struggling to sound out each letter. “It’s just so terrible. And I don’t want to talk about it, I know that I’m doing my best, but I just can’t help imagining it happening to you.”

“Gilbert, you’re taking every possible precaution--”

“I know, Anne. But what if? What if you get sick and it’s my fault?”

“No, listen to me--”

“We’re having a _baby_! I mean, the nursery isn’t set up, nothing’s baby proofed, we don’t have anything ready, really--”

“Gilbert Blythe, listen to me!” He stopped talking. Anne couldn’t help herself. She felt _relieved_. Maybe Gilbert’s concerns were rational, but they’ve had this conversation before. Besides, Anne knew a thing of two about not feeling enough for people, so she knew exactly how to soothe his worries.

“Every single one of your colleagues are doing the same things you are, and they’re _fine_ . And I don’t want to hear about the baby, because little Blythe is just as safe as me. I know you’re scared. Everyone’s scared.” She paused, and looked at him hard. “And I _know_ you’ve been thinking about staying in the hospital.”

He looks at her, mouth agape. He had the sense to look ashamed.

“Don’t you dare look at me like that, Blythe, I know everything about you. If you think it would be better for me and the baby then you’re out of your mind. This isn’t 1918, this isn’t the Black Plague. The world is on fire, and that’s all the more reason why we need to stick together. We need you here Gilbert, to keep us sane. And more than that, you need us!”

Gilbert cracked his eyes open. He couldn’t deny that.

“This is hard, but come _on_ , Gilbert! If anything, we are the most equipped couple to handle such a disaster!”

He let out a low chuckle. If their relationship up to that point counted for anything, this was true.

“Let’s go eat dinner, okay? Little Blythe is hungry.”

And they went.

* * *

And on a late afternoon, at a time sure to go down in the history books, they watched the world burn.

**Author's Note:**

> Um yeah I don't know where this came from, but if anyone enjoys it... comments are appreciated!
> 
> Writing has always been a hobby for me, and I was pretty shocked to find such a lovely community on my search for soothing the ache in my heart from season three. If anyone has some ideas or prompts, let me know!
> 
> Stay safe everyone!


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